Category: From the New World

I love these kinds of episodes: the episodes that just say “screw it” to consistency, and instead go on with their own style based on the vision of someone on the episode staff. It may look weird, but I find that it gives each episode so much personality. I really encourage creators to put i their own styles to spice up the story they’re animating. It’s so much more interesting than the same thing over and over again.

This episode’s animation may not have been as crisp as usual, and there were a lot of distorted faces, but yet the animation was really good. It was full of creativity: the camera angles brought out so much in the characters, and there were plenty of scenes that had movements and actions that are very uncommon in conventional animation. It’s not just the scene at the beginning of that Queerat blowing up, but also where Satoru gets cut on his forhead, the scene at the end of the episode with the slime. The backgrounds looked utterly gorgeous inthsi episode as well, and what also caught my eye were the scenes that focused on touching. They had a strange focus in this episode (not to mention the near-sex scene was stunning).

So let me check for a moment who was behind this episode… and everything suddenly becomes clear: Shigeyasu Yamauchi was behind this episode. Holy crap, this guy is just amazing. I’m not sure whether I want him to do another series, or to keep doing episodes like this, because he is both incredible as an episode director and a series director, bringing out the best in the characters and not caring for conventions at all. This is the first time since Casshern however, that I’ve seen him on an episode that was intended for a more mature audience. Seriously, this is where this guy belongs. His work on shounen shows and romance series is nice and all, but this episode was just incredible, and this is where his style shines like no other.
Rating: 6,5/8 (Amazing)

Well, so this was the best episode of the new season yet if we ignore the first episodes.

This episode consisted out of two halves. By far the biggest part was, like Zetsuen no Tempest’s latest episode, exposition. I remember how I found that rather boring, however, here I really liked it. The creators didn’t just have someone talk for 10 minutes without doing anything else, and they made great use of flashbacks, reaction shots and visual images of what was going on. Not to mention ho well written that exposition was.

I did not expect that the story behind the prologue in the first episode would be told so fast. That strange slug-like creature basically tells what happened to the world, and these scenes turned out to be the start of a conflict between people who have the Force and those who don’t. In the ages after that, this culture evolved that was meant to safeguard the force, and prevent people from going on a rampage like what was shown there. Heck, these really were just children who were testing out the limits of their powers!

What’s also great is that there is no real right or wrong here. Sure, the kids may have the right to know what’s going on and all, but the danger of them abusing their powers remains. When they’re so easily able to kill others, something has to be done to restrain them. In the meantime, what is the role of the different creatures in this series, like those rat monsters? They appeared in the final half of the episode, and here again, it’s pretty much established that they’re at the mercy of the Force. Sure they’re aggressive, but they’re pretty much slaughtered in an instant.

In any case, I hope that there will be more episodes like this that place so much focus on dialogue. It’s going to have to be tough to keep track of everything, but that’s really good: we have a series here that isn’t planning to hold your hand along the ride.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Something very interesting is going on with the animation of this series: its style keeps changing. The special scenes in this episode again looked entirely different from what they looked like in the previous two episodes. This episode also showed the actual animation for the ED for this series, and it looks absolutely gorgeous. What this shows is that the producers are putting a tight leash on the normal scenes, yet they’re giving the animators a lot of freedom to do what they like for the special scenes. Now that everything finished airing, I really can say for certain that this is the show with the best visual direction of the season.

What also makes this show stand out really much is its creature design. It’s been ages since I encountered something like that as good as how it’s done here. They’re deeply rooted in the folklore of this series, and they’re also really creative, yet believable, and really varied. They range from small bees to giant tentacled slugs that speak about technology, and these dogs with tiny heads. Usually when a show does this, it’s based on some sort of existing religion or background. This show just went and created its own.

That slug by the way gave a very surprising twist to this plot. So far technology has seemed to be quite absent, and yet it talked as if it was the most normal thing in the world. This show asked a ton of questions, like what was it doing there and why was it concerned with environmentalist issues?
Rating: 5/8 (Great)

Oh boy, From the New World sure set a standard as the first show of the new season. This show really is good, and it still stands out, even though there have been many other every promising first episodes since. There still are points at which it is just the best of the bunch.

What really makes this show stand out above all the others is its setting. Better than any other show this season, it managed to create its own world with its own rules, cultures, education and customs. Within 2 episodes it already managed to make us feel a part of it by using 12-year old kids who were familiar with it, but still needed to get a grasp on the fine details. The whole Cantis is also a very intersting version of Telekinesis, and I love how rooted it is with the rest of the setting, to the point where humans are seen as gods by other species because of it.

Also, there is a lot of eye candy this season, but even then, I feel that this series has the best artistic direction. Perhaps not the best animation (that award goes to K), but with K you can see that the animators are abusing lens flares a bit much. Here however, everything feels artistic, and the use of colours is just perfect, especially during the trippier scenes, making this series really look gorgeous.

The characters in this series are interesting because as one of the few series, this show decided not to put them on its promo image. They feel different than usual in that they don’t try to stand out from the rest: they feel right in place with the rest of the children there, apart perhaps from that purple haired girl. It makes them feel down to earth, and yet this series is very good at portraying their emotions. This one’s definitely one to keep your eyes out for.

This episode also did a good job of fleshing them out, using that little contest of theirs: it added to their characters, but also it showed some of the more serious sides of the whole Cantis, how it is a taboo to interfere with the Canti of others. They also introduced a guy who probablyis going to become a major villain in quite an interesting way with this.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)